Pandora Rolling Out Personalized Comedy Stations

This is genius, right? Apparently Pandora’s new comedy stations will give listeners the same personalized listening experience they’ve offered for music, without the risk of accidentally having sex to Paul Simons’ “You Can Call Me Al” when both of you are too lazy to turn it off. Users can pick from Pandora’s comedy genre stations such as PG Comedy, Political Comedy, Urban Comedy, etc., or search by specific comedian name. When I tried it out, the station designated Today’s Comedy first pulled up Louis C.K.’s “I Hate Deer” bit, which segued into Chris Rock’s “Off The Pole”. It would be interesting to know how each comedian and album get assigned their descriptors, and even more interesting to know exactly how comedians get paid for this kind of usage. Or how many people are going to accidentally have sex to Eddie Izzard’s “Salad Dressing” joke.